Musings on art, life, A.D.D., and…OOOOH! SQUIRREL!

Who Is Pushing Your Buttons?

I am excited to introduce my newest piece,”Who Is Pushing Your Buttons?”.In some of my works, I use the robot as a metaphor for the unexamined life. It’s all too easy to slip into a routine that gets us through the day with a minimum amount of brainpower. It’s easy to let other people make our decisions for us: what to wear, what to watch, who to listen to, who to believe. It is a natural human instinct to fall in line with a group of like-minded people.

There are people in power who take advantage of those who are easily programmed. It is now more important than ever that each of us takes a moment to question the source of our motivation, and to ask ourselves,”Who is pushing YOUR buttons?”

“Robota” is a Czech word meaning “forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery”, and is one of the words from which “robot” is derived. Here, I use it to refer to a robotic individual (although “robotnik” might be more grammatically accurate).

There was an early version of this piece kicking around in my unfinished pile for quite some time. Current events finally gave me the motivation I needed to dig that out, and flesh it out to create the version you see here. I think the final piece holds true to my idea of “examine what drives you” in a very broad and general sense, although what’s going on now might make people see it in a more specifically political sense.

I was also inspired to do a special limited edition of 8×10 prints, the “Golden Robot” version. Speculation over Trump’s possible ties to Russia, and what influence they might wield over him, was one of my main motivators to finish the first piece. I decided to do a second version featuring a tremendous, fantastic robot (you can see how great he is because he’s solid gold, very classy), receiving a fuzzy broadcast of a winking Putin. This edition is signed and numbered on the front in genuine 23K gold (very classy, top shelf). It is also signed and numbered on the print back. The edition is strictly limited to ten signed/numbered prints at $35 each, plus two signed proofs(and what the hell, maybe a signed proof for the President). All proceeds from the sale of this edition will be donated to the ACLU.